1-week Winter Escape Tour - Souhtwest/Southern US Ideas?
 

Hi all, I'm currently a grad student in Boston looking to escape the New England winter for spring break in mid-March and do a 5-6 day tour in a warmer climate, 50-70miles/day. Currently brainstorming and wondering if anyone had suggestions or ideas.

I'm looking to fly into and out of a major airport, really open to anything that includes mountains, desert, or anything with varied scenery. Open to a shorter tour with some hiking or city-exploration midway or at the end.

Originally I was hoping to do the Oregon coast before I realized the weather in March will still be crummy (I'll get to it eventually since I've done SF-LA and want to complete the coastal route segment by segment). Right now I'm thinking about flying in Las Vegas and riding out to Phoenix or Grand Canyon and flying home from Flagstaff. I know nothing about the riding out there or how feasible the routes are for something like that.

Ideas? Thoughts? I'd love to hear and brainstrom with y'all

Flagstaff will be cold in March. If you want to continue from LA, do LA down to SD, tho you can easily be on and off your bike all day in SD County! If you want desert, it does get warm in March, but you could start in Oceanside (northern SD County), head south to the border then cut East and go over the small mtn chain into Imperial County. IC used to be all desert, but is now farm country. (Easy to find free camping) Head north around Salton Sea and back to Oceanside via Anza Borrego State park.

Southern Arizona, with a flight in and out of Tucson, would meet your requirements. The fact that Adventure Cycling offers tours there during March tells you that it is a decent time to tour there. Flagstaff & the Grand Canyon are at significant altitude and are still cold in March. March is also way too early for the mid-Atlantic region.

https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-cycling-route-network/texas-hill-country-loop/ - Spring is peak wildflower season in the Texas Hill Country.

Consider Puerto Rico?

I'm planning to ride Phoenix to Albuquerque in mid-February over nine days. Might by a little chilly at night, but I'm looking to mix in some hotel stays to remain chipper. March is probably ideal for the Southwest. Was able to get decent flights from the Bay Area using miles, and good bike arrangements using bikeflights.com

Check out flights to/from major Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico/ Texas cities and you could put together something for seven days no problem!

Check out the Adventure Cycling Association routes through the southwest. You can purchase nice maps from them that include weather, services, etc.
https://www.adventurecycling.org/rou...e-network-map/

B

Don't have any specific suggestions, but will say that you might want to avoid areas that are popular college spring break destinations. (E.g., certain parts of Florida and the Gulf Coast).

I'll second (or third) southern Arizona, some nice riding in March out of Phoenix and Tucson. You didn't mention what you're planning as far as camping vs. motels; many of the campgrounds will be full of snowbird RVs. Pactour.com has some nice week-long supported rides out of Tucson.

New Mexico can be chilly in early March. Blue Ridge Parkway campgrounds will be closed, and you've got a decent chance of snow in early March. Natchez Trace can be nice, might be cool, the difficulty there would be only one major airport near the northern end (Nashville). Still might be worth an out-and-back trip, with wildflowers blooming in the woods.

san diego county with beaches, foothills, mountains (up to 6,000 ft) and deserts checks a lot of boxes.

cycling tucson-tombstone-bisbee-sedona-phoenix gives you access to two airports and tons of desert scenery and mountains if you want 'em.

a purely desert escape flying into las vegas incorporating death valley np and mojave national preserve would offer lots of solitude.

fly into san francisco and ride the coast down to la-again.

fly into la and ride the santa barbara/santa ynez/san luis obispo/paso robles area. great wine country and lots of greenery/flowers. flats and hills.
what mountains are around are relatively easy to avoid-or attack.

the sf > la coastal ride would be the coolest (daytime) temp wise but all of the rides would find you in the mid-60's to low-80's for daytime highs.
overnight lows for all the areas will be in the low 40's to upper 50's.
would

You could do worse than ACA's Texas Hill Country loop, or any other tour in Texas Hill Country. Temperatures will probably stay around 50-70 F that time of year, and depending on the year, it's either the beginning or the peak of the 1st (better) wildflower season. Austin would be your major airport for ACA's loop, but you could easily create your own loop that started/finished in San Antonio.

If you wanna stay in Wimberley, hit me up on WarmShowers.

Side note: Mid-March is winter? I mean, I know it technically is, but...you northern folks crack me up.

Texas Hell Week (unofficial version) - March 9-16, 2019
 

It sounds like you are primarily wanting to go on your own. But if you would like some fellow riders, and since you like the idea of the Texas Hill country, consider this:

There used to be an organized tour the 2nd week of March called Texas Hell week. The organized tour ended in 2017. Here's the info about it:
hellweek.com/texas.html

Last year, a bunch of people (I think 30-40) who had (previously) done the organized ride got together and rode. It seems like the same thing will happen this year (2019), from March 9-16:
facebook.com/events/215473292262734/

This is no longer an organized tour, so there is no SAG, no rest stops, etc. But with other people riding, you can probably find people to ride with (if you are interested), and hopefully people can help each other if there are mechanical issues etc. A link to route maps are available on the Facebook page. There are typically 40, 65, and 100 mile routes every day. Just reserve a motel in Fredericksburg, show up, and ride. Fredericksburg is about 80-90 miles from San Antonio & Austin airports.

I haven't done this ride before, but people have told me about it. I'm probably going to do it this year.

I did TXHW twice when it was still around. Last time was 2007 when I used it as part of training early in a 10 month tour...drove from Colorado to DFW, cycle toured to Fredericksburg, rode 8 days of TXHW, toured back to DFW and then flew to Amsterdam to cycle across Eurasia. At the time, there were several hundred participants. The general format was that everyone made their own reservations in Fredericksburg. Each morning there was a designated starting time and a set of three routes chosen. There wasn't any official SAG support. Perhaps some people had a private SAG or in general there were enough cyclists on the roads so you weren't alone. Most cyclists used a bit of flexibility - the A/B/C routes interlocked so people would often ride variations A- (e.g. mostly the A, but cutting off a segment on the B route), picked their own times, etc.

I am glad to see it is back again in an informal fashion. The organizer (Nick) did a good job with the maps in finding a lot of smaller rural roads and mostly staying off the busiest highways. It is a neat area to go through and March is the right time of year. I would expect other cyclists going to have a bit of the past TXHW spirit in mind, almost all road cyclists, varying abilities but both strong racers and others using this as a good training. If you like riding with others, pick the right times and you are likely to find groups.

By the way, in a much smaller fashion is an annual Easter Hill Country tour (http://ehct.com/). It is a three day ride over Easter Weekend. This one does have a SAG and aid stations and has gone from Kerrville for many years. Once again, you get your own accommodations and food, but get a set of maps for the ride. Also attended by several hundred cyclists.

I should mention, while mid-March in Texas Hill Country is a decent time of year temperature-wise, perhaps a little chilly (by our standards), there's also a reasonable possibility of thunderstorms and flash floods. Not "Oh look, it's raining again," but rather "We're all gonna f*ckin' DIIIIEEE!!!"

The good news is when it rains here, it gets it over with in a hurry, and then the sun comes back. An improvement over the east coast, where it feels like it rains every damn day. That's how we manage to get about the same amount of rain as London, but 300+ days of sunshine.

[QUOTE=pdlamb;20763687
New Mexico can be chilly in early March. Blue Ridge Parkway campgrounds will be closed, and you've got a decent chance of snow in early March. .[/QUOTE]

Yup, I forgot how high up the BRP is, no campgrounds open till early May, thx for catching that.

Thanks for the link I have not seen the interactive ACA map before!

Which route do you think you'll be taking? I've heard mixed reviews about the roads/shoulders in AZ. Anyone have insight into the road riding conditions there?

Have you ridden the AZ roads before? Any insight into their condition?

Didn't realize Santa Barbara has an airport I can fly into, but I might just fly there and pick up where I left off on my last tour and zip down the coast to San Diego. Depending on whether Austin pans out or not, this might be a close runner up idea :)

Wow, so you when you say it gets it over with in a hurry, do you mean a matter of minutes, hours, or days?

ridden just a few az roads but driven more than i wanted (vs riding) in the last few years and always scope them out in a riding perspective vs driving perspective for
safety, quality, enjoyment for potential future journeys. didn't have any issues/red flags in tucson, tombstone, bisbee or sedona area. will be able to update some of the tucson
area in a little over a week as i'm headed there around super bowl time.

santa barbara has a small airport you could probably finagle flying into with a regional/small provider after hitting la/long beach/orange county. i was referencing flying into lax,
then riding up to santa barbara, ojai, santa ynez area and then leaving via lax again. riding from lax to dtown san diego along the coast (you would have to ride on the
5 freeway-heavy traffic/wide shoulder-past the camp pendleton area for about 9 miles but still) is approx 125 miles. about 30 miles of that could be on dedicated and separated bike lanes.

san diego county just might be the most versatile area out of all the suggestions. fly into la or sd. fly out of san diego. in between, home base yourself in the julian area and hit the
challenge of palomar mountain (just below 6,000 ft), drop down to the desert, hitting the largest state park in the lower 48 (anza-borrego state park) and ride the desert
along with montezuma grade (11.8 miles of the longest sustained climb in sd county). ride mesa grande foothills and/or thru laguna mountains or cuyamaca rancho state park.
elevations and temps will vary but are virtual saunas compared to what you're dealing with currently. lots of climbing but if you want flats, fly into la, head north up to santa barbara,
then back south to dtown san diego along the coast. flat/flattish and still essential. did you want me to mention the beer culture? probably not as it would defeat any appearance/semblance
of a workout.

Days? DAYS???

If it typically rained for days at a time, I'd move. How can anyone put up with that??

Thunderstorms are usually over in an hour, maybe two. The worst part is usually about 30 minutes. Sometimes it can rain all day, but it won't be bad the whole time.

The southwest looks very good.

But instead, I'm thinking of driving to Greenville SC.
The Greenville SC area looks good for the beginning of March. It's at 1000 feet elevation, and the average temperatures at the beginning of March are around 50F to 60F during the afternoons. And if the day is warmer than average, there's some longer climbs at higher elevation at Caesars Head Park, about 45 minutes away. And Asheville is about 1:15 drive time.


From the weatherspark averages link, showing Feb, March in the middle, and April:
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bc6e5236ee.jpg

Silver Comet Trail is an option.

I'm 11 miles from the trail. Send me a PM if you plan on coming.

https://www.bikeforums.net/southeast...il-photos.html

I don't drive or fly, lol, bad eyes, but I can tell you, the roads here in Arizona are generally excellent, for bicycles. 👍 Actually, people are a little TOO polite, sometimes, if that makes sense, but that's tolerable. 😉😎
You can keep that snow up there, it's usually in the 70s F here, so far. I'm still very new to Phoenix, but the sidewalks are mostly newish too, in case you get tired of the nice roads. 😋😁